Today's Bawful will feature the power of statistical analysis. And this is the Internet, so you can't always do the same schtick over and over, unless your schtick is consistency, something like that. Or I felt like drinking rather than Photoshopping the Suns sucking, even though I was supposed to be doing this post to cover for Bawful so he could get drun-I mean, I was generously offered the opportunity to guest post. Anyways, lets get this stat party started.

Google, stat of the night: 58,100. Just as we made Basketbawful the top Google search result for "potato suck race", I wanted to add more to the legend that is this blog. Until I actually tried a query of "sweet suckteen", and you probably don't need me to tell you, but the 58K+ results are Not At All Safe For Work.

The Detroit Pistons, stats of the night: 12, 13, 20, 36. Sure a blowout loss by a "fighting for an Eastern playoff spot" team with their key players still missing to the "perennially crowned to go to the finals for the West" team may be understandable. But wow. A 12-point 1st and a 13-point 3rd, and a 20-0 Lakers run led to a 92-77 loss. And what is '36'? Was it Kobe's point total for the game? (No, Kobe had only 30 points, along with 8 boards and 7 assists). It's the COMBINED points scored by all 5 'Stions's starters. Includes a non-revenge game by starting center Kwame Brown (4 pts, 8 reb).

Tayshaun Prince, stat of the night: -37. The "poor man's Shawn Marion" somehow managed a whooping +/- of -37 in a 15-point loss! How is this even possible? This has to be some sort of record for the season.

Walter Sharpe, stat of the night: 3. A fabulous debut, Sharpe contributed to Detroit's woes with a +3 suck differential. However, 3 actually refers to the distance in inches missed right of the ENTIRE basket, where the first free throw attempt of his career fell tonight.

The Miami Heat, stats of the night: 100, 6, 5, 30:46. Dwayne Wade recorded his 100th block of the season early in the game, a notable milestone since no other NBA player 6'4" or shorter had ever done it prior. With the officiating double trouble of #12 V. Palmer and #43 D. Crawford, I set the non-call foul blocks over-under at +6. Sadly, or completely logically, 6 actually refers to Miami's new standing in the East, as the Bulls rocked them 106-87. A bawful total of 5 Heat bench players went scoreless during not just a few trillion minutes, but for 30:46 total of playing time.

Los Bulls, stats of the night: 7, 3, 1. Not much I could mention here that won't be on By The Horns, other than the forced awkwardness of "Latin Night" that makes me cringe like shoving los cuernos de toro en mi cabeza. However, they benefit from the bawful of others, as Detroit's aforementioned loss pushes them to the 7 seed, otherwise known as "not crab food". They held The Drain to 3 rebounds (contrast: Ben Gordon had 4). And one Derrick Rose, unintentional sex machine quote machine: "I got hit a few times, but you rub that stuff off and I will have time to recover.” I need a cigarette just swooning over his rookie talent.

Joakim Noah's free throw shooting, stat of the night: 87º. TNT gave us a nice close-up view as he shot two flagrant 1 freebies, courtesy of a Magloire/Wade double team garbage time smother. No need to mention how much contact was made by each Heat player, or who the flagrant was charged on. Anyhoo, he made them both, despite a recent observation of his shooting form, which involves spinning the ball axially like a top, which by my observations was approximately 87 degrees off from where the axis should be. This easily explains his 63.7% FT shooting this season (66.7% career), yet he's still far behind Shaq's shotput and Shawn Marion's flip-flick wrist as the worst looking shots in the NBA. UPDATE!: Reader Axel Foley points out an egregious omission by me: Chuck Hayes as a strong 2nd place candidate, who makes Charles Barkley's golf swing look smooth.

Phoenix's Zone Defense, stat of the night: -20. So it's a good thing to start a game strong, maybe establish your defense like the Suns setting the tone at the beginning of this game. And of course, any Suns fan seeing defensive effort will take what they're given. But against a team that's 1st in the league in offensive rebounds (12.9) and 7th in 3pt% (37.9%), why would you play a scheme that so easily gives these away? The Suns's arrogant lack of adjustment was justified, since they were about -20% more effective at stopping the screen anyways, leading to a -20 point differential.

Matt Barnes, stat of the night: 1. The "poor man's Tayshaun Prince" submitted another 1-for-8 FG performance, littering his past 7 games with inconsistency. Perhaps if we played him some inspirational music, like "Eye of the Tiger", he could have an eye-opening revalation and see the situation more clearly. I'm wondering if a cyclops could help the team at this point, regardless of depth perception issues.

Play by Play bonus: End of the 3rd Quarter (some text may have been adjusted by the author):

Shaq vs Pryzbilla, stat of the night: 2. Apparently, tonight revealed the 2nd drama altercation involving Shaq stuffing a basketball in the Vanilla Godzilla's face (sorry, this poor video is the only one I could find of the first incident, even though they repeatedly showed it on TNT last night). Sir Charles mentions that "Vanilla Gorilla" would be scary if he played on a good team. Double iceburn.

Horrible incompetent officiating, stat of the night: ∞. #28 T. Nunez Jr., #17 J. Crawford, #36 D. Jones. Any sportswriter that's not completely tired of pointing out the NBA's officiating problem must have the stamina of a rhino.

TNT, stat of the night: 5. The number of hilariously awkward jail jokes and Photoshops made by the studio on the night. I've never seen Sir Charles so speechless, that's good late night television.

University of Arizona, inflated stats of the night: 100%, 100%, 25.5, 21.3. Alumns Jerryd Bayless and Channing Frye got to showcase their skills against their home state's pro team, both shooting perfect from the field with 25.5 pts/48min and 21.3 pts/48min, respectively, and Frye clocking a 21.3 blocks/48min rate as well. Such an outburst in performance must portend well for tomorrow's Madness with possibly the most hated Cinderella team in the history of the tournament.

Stretching for Portland jokes, stat of the night: 3. It's been 3 years since someone compiled the NBA Live 06 Ha Seung Jin remix, so because Portland looked so damn good dismantling the Suns, and we're all sick of Oden health and age jokes, let us re-live this most awesome video of The Blazers's favorite Korean baller (I only brought this up because I was really hoping someone did this same thing only with NBA2K9 and Zach Randolph):

Kobe Bryant, stat of the night: .250. Potentially the percentage chance that a Bryant household maid was abused for the night, but alas it represents Mamba's updated game-winning shot percentage, compared to the league average .298. Other fun numbers include his league-leading 42 misses in 56 tries, far more than Vince Carter (35) and JJ/LeBron (33), and league-leading 5 turnovers. And then he ate a baby seal.

Lacktion report, stat of the night: 1. Chris was feeling some sweet lacktations...

Lakers-Pistons: Shannon Brown has reached the Tao of Finance with a two trillion! Meanwhile, Detroit's Walter Sharpe edged off or away from the rim three times -- once from downtown, twice from the charity stripe -- for a suck differential of +3 in 2:35.

Heat-Bulls: This critical battle between two borderline playoff teams featured extensive challenges of lacktivity from both squads. For Miami, James Jones missed two shots (once from behind the arc) and fouled three times for a +5 in 8:00 flat, while Chris Quinn (1.5 trilion) and All-Lacktion selection Yakhouba Diawara (1.3 trillion) have protected themselves from the economic crisis. And Jamaal Magloire's three rebounds and steal in 10:24 were countered with a brick, a giveway, and three fouls for a Madsen-level 4:3 Voskuhl.

The Notorious VDN actually had another opportunity to unleash human victory cigars tonight, having Linton Johnson snag a +1 via brick in 1:31.

Suns-Blazers: Sure, Joel Pryzbilla made a shot and even had an assist and steal in his 28:01 as Portland's starting big man. But with no further shot attempts and only one rebound, he ended up with a 4:3 Madsen-level Voskuhl via three fouls and a giveaway!

About the author:AnacondaHL is the Chief Internet Media Relations and Security Officer for Basketbawful and a grizzled Internet veteran who watches in despair as his favorite team, the Phoenix Suns, drop their chances lower and lower to make the '09 playoffs. When not wasting time at his Clark Kent job to read BasketBawful, he can be found playing the Internet computer game du jour, Googling questionably NSFW phrases, wondering why the Diamonbacks have seven team colors, and browsing other obscure things on the Internet. He hopes someday to learn four languages, discover a completely un-theorized particle of quantum physics (and would obviously name it after myself, not something stupid like Y(4140)), name the largest number in the world after himself, have an intelligent conversation about anime with someone, and to eat a crab grown in Akron.

Noah's FT is not even close to the atrocities of Chuck Hayes. It looks like Hayes dislocates his knee before he shoots his free throws. It makes me cringe. But if we consider the ugly dude factor, Noah probably wins.

Chuck Hayes must have the worst free throw form of all time. I never thought anyone would surpass Anthony Mason's one handed free throws, but I think Hayes has done it.

Buck Nasty - I think you should change that 0% to represent Phoenix's chances of making the playoffs at this point. They're now 4 games back in the loss column with only 10 games to go. I think it's over.

Speaking of the Suns, man the Blazers sure looked great last night didn't they. Clearly they're going to be a real threat in the playoffs, right? Oh wait, it was a Blazer home game (where they're 29-7). Too bad for the Blazers they're most likely gonna open the playoffs on the road (where they're 16-20). If you're friends with any Blazer fans who are looking to gamble on their first round matchup and Portland doesn't have HCA, my advice is to take the bet.

That Lakers-Pistons game was one of the weirdest I've ever seen. The Lakers took that 13 point lead at the end of the first quarter, then Detroit came back to build a 10 point lead of their own after a 38-15 run... only to then allow the Lakers to go on a 32-6 run and put the game out of reach. I can't remember ever seeing three different stretches of totally one-sided ball like that in the same game (unless they were all by the same team, like Boston in Game 6 of the Finals last year).

I can't decide who had the worst 3rd quarter last night: Miami (outscored 32-14), Detroit (outscored 31-13) or Phoenix (outscored 35-22). That's just one big pile of fail right there.

AnacondaHL, awesome post. Last night was a bawful night of basketball all around. My NCAA tournament basket has FAIL written all over it now(Thanks Memphis for not playing any defense last night!) And to add insult to injury, I missed the Vanilla Godzilla getting in Shaq's grill. /Facepalm

I should have added this in my previous comment, but are the Pistons secretly in tank mode right now? I know that have injuries, but they are playing some sickening basketball right now and have for a majority of the season. I'm thinking they want a shot at some of that lottery luck.

Anyone else catch Charles Barkley outing Joel P's nickname last night? "You know what they call him don't you? The vanilla gorilla, Joel Pryzbilla"- And apparently he was the only one on the panel that had heard of it.

Charles is the man.

Yams- you know, 16-20 on the road isn't that horrible. All you need is 1 road win to win a series, even if you don't start with HCA. So if you can win 44% of your road games (16/36= .444), that is a fairly good sign, since you get 4 chances in a playoff series... I'm just sayin'. They aren't THAT horrible on the road looking at their record.

Somebody with more ambition (*cough AnacondaHL *cough) might look at how many of those road wins were against lousy teams and so on, but I won't, partially because I don't want to know the bad news. Portland is my adopted team now that the Sonics are gone, so keep your facts and logical conclusions to yourselves!

Why do you suppose that Shaq hates JPTVG so much? That play where he bulldozed the ball into his face on the ground was dirty as hell, and throwing the ball at his head was just childish (though expected from Shaq).

Of course, Shaq hates Dwight Howard as well, and Dwight is probably one of the friendliest people in the NBA. Maybe he hates D-HO because he views him as a threat- but JPTVG? I'm not sure why he has it out for him.

Is he part of the "flop-ternity?" I don't really think of JPTVG as a flopper...

Latin_D - One of the most regrettable things I've ever done was attend the New York Anime Festival '08, but I did survive with a few good stories. There was one genuinely hot 'n skinny chick there, I'm talking actual hot, not anime girl fan hot 'n "skinny", wearing a salacious schoolgirl outfit with pigtails and all. She was carrying around a giant wooden paddle, on which were the words "YAOI STICK". Frightening and hilarious, I couldn't stop laughing for 5 minutes thinking of all the poor saps she'd tricked over the weekend for not keeping an eye out for danger like myself.

DDC - Does everyone just simply forget about the key players on their team that are injured and just expect the same performance? That's why I wrote the Matt Barnes section like I did, and why I mentioned the key injuries on the Pistions.

AK Dave - And because I did catch and mention Charles giving Pryz the wrong nickname, (it's been in the WotN since the beginning) I shall now destroy you with my numerical prowess.

Game log of 36 road games, easy to find. Only 5 of the wins are against playoff teams, but 16 of the losses are (I'm including losses to PHO early in the year because I can dammit) bringing your percentage down to 5/22 = 22.7%. (lol the first time I did this I put 6/22 because I counted a win against IND. lol.)

On the home side, the record against the same teams is 12-6 (66.7%). Adjust for the home record of the opponent having more weight, and that their opponent will probably have a road record better than 33%, the 22.7%'s looking more like a 5/6 game and out series.

Oden's Knee - I only chose rhino because I was getting all nostalgic with the Ha Seung Jin vid of epic stuff from the Internet. I guess I really meant to say "the stamina of BloodNinja". It's at the 5th one down: I put on my robe and wizard hat.

AnacondaHL said:"(I'm including losses to PHO early in the year because I can dammit)"

Oh, OK. Well whatever helps you sleep at night- just feel free to manipulate the numbers however you want. (That's what I do) :p

As I said before, 16/36 isn't a terrible road record, as road records go. Christ man, it's not like they went 1-30 vs. the East or something...

And uh, I've heard both "gorilla" and "godzilla", so how did Barkley get it 'wrong'?

I mean, if Barkley calls him "gorilla", who are YOU, AnacondaHL, to say that Sir Charles made the error? I tend to think that Sir Charles, the Round Mound of Sound, is a bit more of an authority on such issues than you, grizzled internet veteran that you are... Do you have something against Gorillas? Did King Kong scare you as a child?(Personally I think he most resembles an orangutan, but that doesn't rhyme with "pryzbilla")

I can't tell you how happy I am to see BloodNinja get mentioned here on Basketbawful. Now the circle is complete :)

Portland's gonna be a tough out in the first round, no matter who they play, but they're gonna be an out nonetheless. A team that young and inexperienced who stinks on the road is not a recipe for postseason success. I wanna see them match up with Utah so we can see the two teams with the biggest home/road discrepancies meet each other. If those two meet in the 1st round, it's going 7 games no doubt, and none of the games will even be close.

AnacondaHL- I realize the Pistons have injuries, but I'm wondering if some of those injuries are legit. We know about Allen Iverson and backgate, but Rasheed was seemingly mailing the season in even before he went on the injuried list. It became clearly obvious a few games into the Iverson trade, that they weren't the same squad they've been in the pasts and expectations have been adjusted accordingly. I think there is an on the low tank job going on. Just a thought, probably wrong, but just a thought.

The Dallas Mavericks have to be front runners for Worst of the Night, after the triple-ego-ectomy-bypass-surgery psychopathic junkie Chris Anderson put on them tonight. Jesus Christ that man wants blood.

Happens around 56 seconds into the clip: http://www.nba.com/video/games/mavericks/2009/03/27/nba_den_dal_0020801080_recap.nba/

Why is there no doubt in my mind that the Birdman has actually killed a man before?

please comment on the officials' superstar treatment of lebron james during the cavs game today. i know that al harrington was given a lot of grief cuz he touched the backboard after a dunk and received a technical because of it... but king crab did the same thing and of course the officials allowed him to get away with it. not to mention his total dramatics after the game, when he was crying about a 'borderline ugly' play that wouldn't have even been a flagrant had it been on any other player. ick.

please don't forget the lakers for wotn. on one hand, they did win against new jersey. on the other hand, they almost gave the game back to the nets by allowing leads of 14 and 22 to go down to single digits. mad props to kobe bryant and his 4 for 19 shooting.

then again, the nets were practically begging the lakers to win this game. they turned the ball over 22 times - and they average 13 for the season.

For anyone else that watched the MSU-Kansas game, did you notice that Cole Aldrich looks strangely familiar to a certain notably ineffective former Utah Jazz center? He also has the ugliest jump shot I've ever seen. It's like the polar opposite of Eric Gordon's.

James Posey's performance Friday night in MSG against the New York D'Antoni's was nothing short of WotW worthy.

In the midst of digging themselves from a seven-point halftime lead into a 12-point hole, the Hornets' 6th man decided to take over the game by putting the ball in his own hands ... then, chucking it in the general vicinity of referee Gary Zielinski's NBA-issue, um, black shoes.

The Auto Parts King whistled him for a loose ball foul, prompting "Pose" to execute the toss. He was then tossed on just one technical, which is itself deserving of an honorary Voskuhl.

Al Harrington thinks that's a boneheaded play.

The Hornets folded in the 4th, and Posey drew a 1-game suspension, meaning he misses Sunday's game vs. the Sprus.

Perhaps even better than the ejection was Posey's explanation for the tantrum: the old "if-I-had-shot-him-he'd-be-dead" defense.

“It was a bounce pass that hit his foot that came back to me,” Posey said. “It goes on a lot at games, guys giving the ball back to the ref, and like I said, if I was to throw it at him, I think I’ve got better aim than that.”

Really? So it wasn't Posey who shot 4/29 from 3-point land in his last 8 games, and 15/57 overall? I suppose I could be mistaking him for a number of players on the Hornets' sucktastic bench.

It's great to see this gritty, tough-nosed, 2-time NBA champion keep his composure for a struggling squad, especially with two injured starters (Stojakovic and Chandler), don't you think?

The Great Shaq-ovic went 6-for-15 at the charity stripe vs. the Kings tonight as the Suns lost by 8... I guess they "didn't matter" tonight. Now, I know the complete and utter lack of defense by the Suns didn't help, but I, as I'm sure Bawful will be as well, am just sayin'.